Who wouldâ€™ve thought that solving math challenges would be so much fun? In my book, that can only be when the gameâ€™s design is top notch and with Sumico, from the Dutch developer Ludomotion, that is just the case.

In Sumico, players will face some harsh math problems. That sounds utterly dull, but bear with me here. The gameâ€™s design is really flawless. At itâ€™s core, it is solving math, yes. But this game offers clever use of the renowned Candy Crush design. Players need to solve those problems at a grid full of hexagons. On these hexagons are numbers displayed. Players need to combine them with hexagons showing typical math signs, like the plus and minus, etcetera. By holding the first number, swiping and combining it with a math sign on to another number, a sum is made and the answer shows up on screen. With the answer, it is possible to make a new sum.

The coolest thing about this game, is that players can use as many tiles as they would like to use to come up with an answer for the to be solved problem (displayed at the left corner on screen). To more hexagon one uses, the greater the reward will be. Answer tiles will have extra benefit bonusses, like a multiplayer of just some extra points. Those will be add up to the score the player makes while solving a math problem, making him earn more points. And, just like any other Candy Crush-esque mobile game: the higher to score, the more stars one will get; with three stars at its maximum. After that, it is possible to compare high scores with friends.

What makes this game so challenging, is that when players use a math sign, it dissapears form the grid. And sometimes, it will not get replaced with a new one. So that means that players must think ahead of what to do, within the smallest numbers of swipes, but with the best possible outcome. It is a balance between going for some easy one star victories (which feels good) and going for the true golden three star masterpieces (which feels awesome). But I must say: it is unclear to me when I get three stars or why I just got one; so I hope this will be fixed. Also: it wasnâ€™t always clear to me when or why I got a particulair bonus; they just came to be.

At the end, Sumico is a clever and fun game to play. However, it fails to communicate directly to the player when and why some things happen on screen; as a player, I just took them for granted. But it felt I wasnâ€™t in totall control of my own score and that actually bugged me. But like I sad: the game design of Sumico is genius and solving math problems wasnâ€™t fun untill Sumico came around.